Collapse
by Marmalah
Summary: Sam didn't know when it had started getting easier to lie to Dean rather than to tell him the truth. / And of course, because he was a Winchester, nothing ever went his way. / Two-shot.
1. Collapse

_Welp. here's my first Supernatural fanfic. Just a little drabble, cause that's normally what I write when I first start writing for a new series. -_- I'm sure others have noticed, but after like season 3-ish, it seems like Sam and Dean have just been drifting farther and farther apart. It's so depressing D: So this is Sam's thoughts on it, pretty much._

**Warnings: There a spoilers scattered about in here for all of the seasons, just so you're warned! So don't read this if you haven't watched all of Supernatural, or read at your own risk.**

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><p><strong><em>Collapse<em>**

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He didn't know when this distance had started appearing between him and his older brother. He didn't know when it had started getting harder to smile or to laugh or show any other emotion other than anger around his brother.

Sam didn't know when it had started getting easier to lie to Dean rather than to tell him the truth.

Sam was a smart kid – he'd attended Stanford, after all – so he had a few theories and ideas. He supposed Dean had started to break, earlier when they had just started hunting again. When Dad had died. Sam knew that he could never understand the pain that Dean went through, because he'd never been that close to his father. Hell, he'd hated him for a long time, and he still didn't understand why Dean had blindly followed the man for so long without question. But Sam was long done with holding onto the grudge against John. He was still angry, every now and again when he thought about how Dean had literally broken apart when he had found out Dad was dead… but John had been dead for years now, and so Sam decided that one day he would need to grow up and learn to forgive.

Something had been wrong with Dean, Sam noticed, ever since he'd escaped from Hell. At the time, he'd had no idea how bad Hell really was. He'd had an inkling of an idea, but it was nothing close to the real tortures Dean had endured. Sam had wanted to help. He wasn't sure how, but he had hope that there was some way to save his brother from the memories. But Dean wouldn't even open up to him, and that had hurt Sam in a way that Dean could never understand. They were brothers – their only family left was each other, so who else could help them? Sam felt abandoned and betrayed, but he would be strong for Dean. It was what younger brothers did, and he had to try his best to be the perfect little brother that Dean needed.

Maybe everything had started to fall apart when Sam had chosen to stay with Ruby over Dean, when all of his thoughts and decisions didn't matter, as long as he was able to drink the demon blood he had been so terribly addicted to_. "If you walk out that door, don't you ever come back,"_ Dean had said, and he'd left anyway. He had seen the hope and the trust on Dean's face break down completely – deep down, in a place he didn't want to acknowledge, he'd known that this would ruin them. And yet he'd left anyway.

Trust. In the end, it had always come down to trust.

Which is why, when he'd come back from the cage without his most important thing, the results were catastrophic. He remembered Dean, getting plagued with vampire blood. And he'd just sat back. Watched. **Smiled**_. God, _Sam had thought when he regained his memories, _even for a man without a soul, that is just not right. _When he had remembered, he'd felt his heart finally shatter into dust. _Poor Dean, _he said, but that wasn't enough. Dean didn't need sympathy. He needed his brother, and Sam just couldn't give him that. There was something wrong with him, and he didn't know what and he didn't know how to fix it. All he knew now was that he was a terrible, wretched little brother, and he deserved that whole 160 years in Hell.

After everything that had happened between them, Sam wondered if they could ever go back to how they used to be. Sam and Dean; searching for their father and the demon that killed their mother. Sam and Dean; two brothers who wouldn't think twice about offering up their lives for one another. Not Sam and Dean; two broken brothers with broken trust and a broken family. Not Sam and Dean; two brothers who started the apocalypse and foolishly risked everything and more to end it.

Not Sam and Dean; just two people that had already had their fate and their lives and their futures picked out for them. All Sam could do was look back and wonder, _how did all of this happen? Why us?_

Sometimes, his mind screamed, _because you're Winchesters, you're cursed. _Others, it whispered, _it's all your fault, Sammy; you brought this upon them. You brought it upon yourself. Look how many people have died for you. You should've never been born._

And very quietly, the rational, still sane piece of his mind murmured, _because it was meant to be._

Never before in his life had Sam wanted, now more than ever, to scream at the top of his lungs until he could no longer utter a word.

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><p><em>Well, there ya have it. I hope you liked it, and I would love if you leaved me a review and told me how I did! Constructive criticism is appreciated, also. c:<em>


	2. Fragments

_So, originally, Collapse was supposed to be just a one-shot. But then... Oh, Hell, I don't know. This happened. I feel like it's really repetitive of the first part, but I guess that's why it's now a two-shot... I just fail at life._

_Don't mind me, I'm just here, suckin' at life. Ya know._

**Warnings: Spoilers for pretty much all of the seasons. So if you havent watched seasons 1-7 of Supernatural... read at your own risk. Huzzah!**

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><p><em><strong>Fragments<strong>_

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There had been a point in his life where he had wanted a family. He'd wanted to marry Jess and have kids and raise them normally and never introduce them to anything supernatural. He had wanted to leave his life as a hunter behind, before it was too late and he was sucked in so far that he wouldn't have the strength to pull himself out.

And then Dean showed up on his doorstep and Jessica was dead on his ceiling and her blood was on his face and there was fire, fire, _fire –_

It took him months to realize that there was never a way out. Once you were a hunter, you were always a hunter. Sam had fooled himself into thinking that he could ever have a normal life – with Jess or with anyone, really. He had never wanted this life – the life of a hunter – but he'd been dragged into it time and time again. He was _born _to it. He had never had a choice.

He would never blame Dean, because Dean was a victim, too. Sam thought that, deep down, he had always been angry at his Dad for obsessing over revenge. He was angry that he left them, night after night, at random motels, sometimes without food and always lonesome. For most of their childhood, all they'd had were each other. _(and maybe, he had hoped that one day he could've thanked his Dad for that, too, because he and Dean would not be as close if they hadn't had to raise one another)_

Addiction, in a twisted way, had been holding him together for those long months that Dean had been in Hell, and even a little after that. The road of a hunter was dark and twisted, and he'd needed control – but then it spiraled out of his fingertips and he'd betrayed his brother and made love to a demon and ruined everything. What he longed for was something stable – unlike the millions of different hunts and supernatural beings or the ups and downs of he and Dean's crumbling relationship – and once he had it, it turned quickly from control to obsession in the sensual slices of Ruby's wrists.

He no longer _deserved _a normal life, after all that he'd done. He'd killed innocent people. His blood was not completely human; there was demon blood flowing through his veins. He had no idea what could happen – what if he… _changed? _How, he didn't know, but there was a fear that was worse than anything he'd ever felt when he'd faced a demon or a monster or even Lucifer, that one day he would _turn _and then he wouldn't be Sam anymore. He would be dangerous to everyone around him. He would be dangerous to Dean, and he couldn't let that happen.

Sam wasn't sure who he was anymore. And that wasn't something he could handle. So, he turned to whiskey and beer when demon blood was no longer an option. Beer to help him sleep at night, so long as Dean never found out. But he was pretty sure his brother would understand, because Sam knew that he was not coping well either – with anything. He could feel the guilt eating away at them from the inside out, and unfortunately, this was one monster they could not fight.

After that came Hell on Earth, riding on four horses named Pestilence, Famine, War, and Death, with Lucifer leading them along. After resisting the Devil himself for so long, Sam was tired. He was so terribly, terribly tired, and giving up seemed almost like Heaven on Earth _(yeah, right)._ So he'd said yes, with the hope that his withered, broken body could resist Lucifer with all its might.

He'd lasted about 30 seconds before the glue holding his mind together gave way and he crumbled under the Devil like a shattered toy, because he was _afraid _to fight back, because he was _afraid_ of what could happen to himself. For once, Sam had thought that it'd be okay to be terrified for himself but he'd chosen a horrible time to finally start caring.

But when the time came, he threw himself into the pit for the safety of his beloved brother _(no, no, the world can go screw itself, _he thought bitterly, _whereas if Dean is safe then everything is okay) _and he honestly didn't care if he were to rot in Hell for the rest of eternity _(literally). _So long as he could buy Dean a few more measly years _(with Lisa and Ben and the apple pie life that Sam had desperately wanted for his whole life)._

Being pulled out had been a miracle, but of course it was too good to be true. Somewhere along the way, he had lost his soul–what made him–_him_; what made him completely and utterly _Sam, _because all he had left was the splintered pieces of himself. Dean didn't trust him anymore and he hadn't for a while. Sam did not blame him. When Death put up the wall and Castiel took it down, he had to rely on himself to try and put the pieces of Sam back together–even the ones he'd lost so long ago that he didn't even think they were in existence anymore.

He'd killed himself twice _(it's all in your head, Sammy) _to gain back what was missing. And of course, because he was a Winchester and nothing ever went his way, it all went to Hell _again._

"No, Lucifer, you're not real," he repeated a hundred _(a thousand? a million?) _times to what Dean saw as air but Sam saw as the Devil, alive and real and definitely not in the Cage. No matter how many times he wished him away, he wouldn't leave, and then all his thoughts were plagued with were_, "was 160 years in Hell not enough? Is he out? Does he want his vessel back?" _He was drowning in his terror and Sam couldn't tell Dean because he was already dealing with too much.

His life was a merry-go-round of guilt and fear and self-loathing. It seemed like all he could do for the rest of his life was try to redeem himself. Sam had spent so long trying to be normal that he'd tried too hard and it had slipped out of his fingers like water. After everything he'd done, it wasn't something he was worthy of. In the end, all he could do was have faith that maybe there was still hope for Dean. Sam was too far gone to be saved.

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End file.
